Club 1.5 Mile Time Trial

Introduction

Until as recently as the 1960s it was widely believed that the enlargement of the heart due to regular progressive exercise was actually a possible cause of early death amongst athletes [Athlete's Heart]. All this changed with the publication in 1968 of Dr Kenneth Cooper's 'Aerobics', which spurred a fitness revolution. In this book the 12-minute run and 1.5 mile fitness tests were first publicised. These tests are now used by military organizations, law enforcement agencies, public schools and universities, and amateur and professional athletic teams the world over for assessing cardiovascular fitness.

Being easy to conduct, advantaging neither short nor long distance runners, being equally suitable for either gender and any age or ability level, and coming with an abundance of research data and easily understandable results tables, the 1.5 mile Time Trial has been found to be an extremely useful tool with which athletes can track their fitness.

The results from these time trials, held roughly every six to eight weeks in place of a Tuesday speedwork session.

The time trial data also provides useful feedback information from which coaches can plan future training, and allows runners to predict likely times for their upcoming races.

NB.
As there have been changes to the original Cooper 1.5 mile test standards since 1968, and different bodies use slightly different measurements, the club thinks using age-grading tables to assess results provides better accuracy for runners, as clearly some 1.5 mile test standards are meant for much less active populations.